Previously, on Dumbgeons and Dragons.
Thea, Bort, Grancis and Nighthunter, you exit out into this long hallway that you entered in with Vorunax and there are demons rushing out and crashing out behind you and it's like this wave that rolls up the wall and continues to follow you.
Vorunax, you see a large hand reaching down towards you and grabbing hold of you and as well the other hand grabs hold of Lipsinkie.
I see why you lost your way.
Having heard what is in store for the world sickened me.
I think Lipsinkie's had enough of this nonsense because it's some real nonsense when your only friend in the world's arm gets eaten by the one you used to serve.
Yeah.
Most people don't get to say that.
Banishment goes on both of you. There's this pop and these lights get pulled into that pop and it explodes like this shockwave out that blasts Sporkus on his ass.
You turn and you look and Vorunax is face down in the dirt.
Vorunax, what's wrong? What's wrong?
Anybody see where they took Vorunax and Lipsinkie?
Nope, got swept out by all that lovely stuff.
Oh fuck.
Where are we?
Looks like we're like right above the main tower.
Your footsteps echo down this corridor and you hear off into the left you hear this moan come from somewhere and you hear this cracking of bone off into the side.
And then brings you to these stairs which go down this deep dark stairwell and at the bottom you see this one single light.
Welcome to Dumbgeons and Dragons. I'm your dungeon master Russ More. He him also with me today is Tom Laird.
Yeah that's me. He him and I am playing Flint. He him.
And Amy More.
Yes.
She her. And I will be playing Gael Nighthunter, Ogla Kahnu, she they and also Thea Amastasia, she her and Tom are you really Flint? Can you even say that anymore?
I know I feel like it's a bit misleading.
That is what my character sheet says so that's what I say.
Alright so we gotta go in and change Tom's character sheet so that the cast is right. Carla Max dead.
She her playing Lipsinki Pipdiggins, also she her.
And Kyle Claset, regular cast member.
That's right that's me. I'm he him and I'm playing Vorunax the One-Armed also he him.
It was an interesting title for Vorunax before this all happened but now it all makes sense.
It makes sense now.
I dropped it a long time ago and Russ was like maybe.
Yeah we'll see. We'll get there. What is this Star Wars? Come on now.
Now everybody is going to go back and listen to his like did he say it?
Did he say it?
I believe it. I believe anything.
Now Russ you need to go back in, edit Shangler making some joke about him only having one arm.
And then boom it's all tied together.
We could probably do it. It's possible.
Oh god we're going back and changing the cast. Don't you know that this is a really bad thing to do.
Have you not seen any movies?
I don't have enough time to do this. Somebody else has to do it.
It's true.
You know what? When you are a patron. Good segue.
Wow. Which is definitely what we were just talking about.
Did you know you can become a patron?
Did you know how many things we have over on Patreon? Like how active we are on Patreon.
How many episodes we release every single month.
So many fucking episodes.
On Patreon. It's a lot.
Unreasonable actually.
The episode we release, there's a guaranteed one more downtime over there.
Plus the bonus show, there's at least one of those.
And then we hang out and we talk to you in Discord.
Get to see our silly faces in like book club.
Do producer chats.
Book club.
Game time.
I see it. I always see like cool food and like good plants.
And cute animals.
Pets. All kinds of stuff in the Discord.
Yeah. There are so many things happening over on our Discord.
And you can join us at Patreon.com slash dumb dragon cast.
And when you are a patron, you get an episode dedicated to you.
Like today's patron, Matthew Miller.
Thank you Matthew.
As I feel like we've been saying at the beginning of every episode for like a year.
Hope this isn't the one where we all die.
Yeah.
But if it is, Matthew, it was so wonderful for you to be here.
For this momentous occasion.
Also, you'll know when he's going to kill us off.
Because he won't dedicate an episode to a patron.
Listen folks.
See, I'll just take it out in post.
You'll never know.
You're the worst.
That's right.
Patreon.com slash dumb dragon cast.
We hope to see you over there.
And now fuck it.
Let's play.
Echoing sounds of footsteps move down a narrow set of stairs.
It's dark around you.
Magically dark.
You can't see the hand in front of your face.
There's the sound of dripping.
You can hear the sounds of the people in front of you.
For those of you in the lead.
The echoing sounds of your crew behind you.
And the moaning undead coming from up above.
Where you left them.
At the barred gate to this room of the Ecrypt.
As you descend the stairs.
At the barred gate to this room of the Ecrypt.
As you descend down towards the Abyssal Jail.
You go to take a step.
As you've been traveling down these stairs for quite some time.
And the step isn't there.
You begin to fall.
Wind rushing past you.
This icker smell.
Engulfing you in what feels like this humid cloud.
Oh, humid cloud.
Disgusting.
No, no, human.
Much better.
And we cut to the forest.
Vorunax and Lipsankey are picking themselves up.
And just teleported out of Orcus's stronghold.
Vorunax, you collapse.
A rush of energy coursed through your body.
And you lay there, groggily on the grass.
As your eyes slowly begin to open.
And you see Lipsankey above you.
Vorunax, what's wrong? What's wrong?
Vorunax, you feel where your arm was.
And there, at this moment, having absorbed the energy of two of these
essence of gods.
The wound is healed over and you have this rejuvenation about you.
You have gained 200 temporary hit points.
Yes.
And from the black skull, the ability to cast Blight at 9th level.
And from the white skull, the ability to cast Moonbeam at 9th level.
Both great.
You look around you.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
Don't thank him, you did that.
You did that.
Thank you, Kyle.
It's true.
Thank me.
You look around you and the forest before you is lush and green.
The clearing that you're in is padded down as if it is well traveled.
Sounds of birds and crickets off in the distance are echoing through.
Again, Lipsankey, like I said.
Legion sworn.
Friendship sworn.
But please, lead the way.
Yeah, I thought we could...
Okay, I feel like we have two options.
I mean, let's head into town, regardless.
And I could use like a nap or some food or both.
Or I'd like to maybe like deal with that situation a little bit, too.
Referring to your, you know, stump.
Right, right.
And then, I mean, I know we can agree that Orcus totally sucks.
Right?
Like, same page.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
But I mean, we have come back in time.
So, I mean, just maybe when you see Little Leaf, you might just consider maybe we
could just like stay here.
And like, no.
Just think about it.
Is that something...
Do you think that we wouldn't have to worry about the future that we created
in your timeline?
You don't think we'd have to worry about that?
Oh, no, we definitely have to worry about that.
Like a hundred percent.
But like, I feel like we left really, we were in it, the thick of it.
And now we could just like kind of chill for a bit.
What of the others?
Yeah.
Okay, I mean, just think about it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.
I'll give you my opinion once I come to one.
Okay, perfect.
I mean, maybe let's just put a pin in it for a little bit.
Go into Little Leaf.
I mean, yeah.
Get ourselves kind of taken care of and then decide when we're not emotional.
Fair cop.
All right.
I look forward to seeing your hometown.
Me too.
It's been a while since I've been here.
Throughout this, you begin to walk off.
What does Lipsinki remember Little Leaf being like?
It's just a very quaint.
Like it is just a nice little village with a little sort of, you know,
everybody knows each other.
Everything is like quite well maintained and nice.
And people take a lot of pride in their community.
It's a bit of a little, it's sort of a shire.
Right.
If you will, like green and nice and yeah, just a really solid community.
Follow this path.
And as you as you are traveling, things become more familiar to you.
You begin to recognize carvings of trees to mark locations along the way.
You see signs of inhabitants in the area.
Subtle signs.
Only things that you would notice the different bent or curved plant life that you would set up as messages or notes.
Ways of communicating to people who are coming or ways of communicating to those in your village who are coming and going.
And the closer you get to town, when you would expect to start to see people,
it begins to change.
It begins to look not quite as vibrant as where you came from.
There's a stream that that kind of runs down and away from the direction you're walking.
And what you remember to be a crystal clear stream now is is like very low when there's this sludge to it.
Like it's it's been stagnant and stale for for quite some time.
Even though you know that in this time, Lipsinkie hasn't been gone for all that long,
with several months to maybe a year you've been traveling before we found Lipsinkie in Blackpool.
And you come to this archway in this path.
And the path is not as far as Vorunax is concerned, the path is not obvious.
You're following Lipsinkie and it starts to twist and wind.
And even at a point, you feel like you are no longer walking in any direction towards any civilization
until Lipsinkie leads you through this grove and into this hilled region.
And it spreads wide in the middle of this forest.
It's surrounded by an entire grove of trees that are all drooping in now.
There's a browning and graying to the leaves on them.
And you see up ahead, there's a couple people, a couple gnomes moving slowly through the middle of town.
There's a few that are hitting out mats in the street.
It's not the vibrant bustling community that you once knew it was.
You catch their eye. Who is it that you see? You recognize them immediately.
They are maybe not an official in town, but someone relatively high up.
I think I see the teacher from the school.
So someone that everyone in town knows because we all went to the same school.
So she's sort of an authority figure, even if not officially.
But still, even as an adult, it's like, there she is.
You see Johanna Rabel Bible.
It was an all-girls Christian school.
Could have been Ripple Depple, but I went with Rabel Bible. That's what happens.
I was looking at Whistle Diggles, which I thought was also fun.
Well, maybe we'll meet Whistle Diggles.
You see Johanna Rabel Bible, and she's one of the people pushing this cart.
This cart is overflowing with what looks like dead and decaying plant material.
She sees you come through the arch and down towards the town.
You're not close enough quite to hear her, what she's saying,
but she knocks the person to her side and she lights up.
The two of them stop what they're doing and they run towards you.
It's a bit of an awkward distance to be running towards you
because you're still quite a ways out.
I assume that you also run.
I will run, although I feel like the lip-synchy that's running
is the one that has traveled back in time.
If it was current timeline lip-synchy who had only been gone for like,
they didn't really have this relationship, but she's been gone.
She's delighted, so lip-synchy absolutely is like, oh my goodness,
so happy and running, best she can.
Just feeling a little rough.
The camera zooms out and we slowly see these two people running towards each other.
Varnak slowly trailing behind until finally you meet in Johanna,
even though you didn't necessarily have this relationship,
embraces you in this huge hug and pulls you back and looks at you and says,
it's so lovely to see you.
You look like you've been through so much.
You haven't been gone that long.
Are you okay?
Oh, it's so nice to see you too.
Hmm.
Yes, I'm okay.
It's complicated.
That's the short version.
How are you?
Things around here seem different than I remember.
She looks over your shoulder to Varnaks and says, is he, are they with you?
Oh, this is my very best friend in the whole wide world, Varnaks.
Hello?
Varnaks, this is my teacher, Ms. Rabblebible.
Ms. Rabblebible, nice to meet you.
You educated quite a pupil from what I know.
Oh, thank you, thank you.
Yes, come in.
Well, let's talk.
She leads you down into the village and to the schoolhouse.
We cut back to the echoing sound of wind rushing past you.
Yes.
I have a question.
So, fuck time.
So, this lip-synchy, the one that Carl is currently playing,
is the lip-synchy from the future, right?
So wouldn't she look 10 years older?
Like, 100%.
I didn't want to say you look tired, but like...
Oh, yeah.
You look tired.
Yeah, it's been...
You look, are you okay?
Been doing hard living.
Yeah.
You've been sleeping, girl.
You use a night cream?
Johanna has some class and is like, are you okay?
Also, you know, with the Rabblebible, she cried more, more, more.
That's all I can do.
So, the mayor in your town is Billy Idol, okay?
Oh, man.
I can't not now sing Rabble Yell.
It's just Rabblebible.
I like it.
Alright.
Sorry, as you were, the wind whipping past us.
The humid cloud, the humid...
Yeah, don't worry about it.
It's happening.
Gross.
You expect to land with a thud, and you begin to...
You feel your body touch ground, but begin to slide.
And you're moving through this spiral slide, moving down,
and it's getting wetter the longer you go.
And the texture begins to pick up.
Like, there's this gravelly feeling.
Until you begin to feel it pull back.
And you hear this loud growl behind you.
Everybody make a dexterity saving throw at disadvantage.
Okay.
It's a good start.
Okay, Night Hunter rolled a five and then a one.
Just when I thought it couldn't get any worse.
Oh, but she's got a plus four, so that's five.
Guacamole.
Ooh, no, rolled a six and a 12, so a six.
And Thea.
Wow, my rolls are really shitty today.
Oh, I just rolled a nat 20.
Yeah, don't worry about that.
And a 17.
Thea is not a stranger to the slip and slide,
let's just say.
Fair.
Sorry, Tom, for Bort.
15.
Grancis, Night Hunter, and Guacamole,
you feel this rush of wind tear past you.
As these clamping jaws close down around you,
you find yourselves inside the mouth of some huge beast.
Thea and Bort, this slide that you're moving down,
whips out from underneath you,
and you find yourselves hurtling through this space,
and you land down hard on the ground.
And you're going to take 17 bludgeoning damage
as you try and come to some light around you.
You don't know where it's coming from exactly,
but it begins to illuminate the space.
You see these huge feet before you.
You look up and up and up,
and before you is a flesh-rotten
terrasque.
What do you want to deal with first,
inside the mouth or outside the mouth?
Inside the mouth,
because it's mostly me and Grancis, right?
It's Night Hunter and it's...
Night Hunter, Guacamole, and Grancis.
Ah, the dream team.
What a crew.
Gile,
Guacamole, and Grancis.
It's the G-Team.
Finally, it's the G-Team.
The G-Team.
Oh, shit.
This is not good.
No, this is not good.
All right, I'm going to blast it.
Ready?
Cover your ears.
Yes, all right.
Hold on to your butts.
Let's forth this lightning blast
inside the mouth of this creature,
and from outside,
Port and Thea,
you see these lightning crackle
through its giant teeth,
illuminating what looks like this
caved-in skull,
as it screeches this hideous,
guttural screech,
as you can now see this lightning
extending down its throat,
and its throat is completely torn out.
Its mouth opens wide
and spits Grancis, Nighthunter,
and Guacamole out and down towards you.
You all fall.
Guacamole flaps her wings.
They're covered, but she still manages.
I'm sure she can soften her fall.
That's right.
You're going to take 12 bludgeoning damage
as you hit the ground beside everybody.
As it's rearing back
and scratching at the ground around itself,
what do you do?
You look around,
and there are hallways everywhere.
It is like nothing that you,
specifically your characters,
have ever seen.
Whoa, Grancis.
That was awesome, old man.
His moves.
Yeah, I know.
Learn that one down in the abyss here.
That's Leonard.
He's the Tarasque who guards this place.
He doesn't let anybody in or out
through the front gate,
so we're lucky to have made it this far.
Well, that is fantastic.
There, you always say Grancis
is useless, cannot do anything.
What did you say about pancakes?
Nothing about his pancakes.
Nothing, nothing about his pancakes.
So, options.
Shall we just choose one and go, Grancis?
Do you know where to go?
And your pancakes are delicious.
Thank you.
Everybody loves them,
especially down here,
where they're cooked up with tiny imps
and little bits of fairy beans.
We don't have time for this.
Right, yeah, no, let's go this way,
and he just starts running off
down towards the hallway.
Hustle.
You hear the sound,
long, moving footsteps hit the ground,
and everything shakes around you.
You hear these growling and snarling calls
coming from down in different ways,
and you're following Grancis,
and you see up ahead in the hallway
that he's running towards
is there's a dim light
down at the end of this long corridor.
Is it a shimmering light?
It is a dim, shimmering light.
Up ahead in the distance,
we saw a shimmering light?
I see a shimmering light, yeah.
Okay.
Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
Well, it depends.
What a good thing or a bad thing?
The light we're running toward.
Oh, well, that means you can see a little better.
It's probably pretty good.
I don't know how to respond to that.
You continue forward.
You continue forward
until the light begins to become bright enough
to see the hallway well enough around you,
and it appears to be like rib cages
all strung together.
You can see through them,
and there are what look like
decaying organs on the insides of these walls.
Thea, as you're running by,
a hand shoots out towards you.
I want to instinctively, like,
just karate chop at it, huh?
Make a sanity check
before you try and karate chop.
I'm going to roll for karate chop.
Okay.
12.
Well, you don't stumble back,
and yeah, you can karate chop at it.
Yeah, I want to chop at it.
I don't want to just grab me, so it's like...
Yeah, it shoots out towards you.
You chop it back, and it falls to the ground,
and it begins, like, moving its fingers
and crawling towards you, dragging this long stump.
You make it down this hallway
as more of these arms are shooting out,
and behind them, you see these faces,
like, these gaunt, ghoulish faces.
Just don't look at them.
Everybody keep your eyes forward,
and we'll make it towards this light,
and maybe, just maybe, Jared will be there.
Why shouldn't we look at them?
Well, if they look at them,
then they can control you,
and then you get stuck in the hallway,
and then they absorb you into the hallway.
Naturally.
Keep your eyes down, you guys.
Guacamelee, don't look at them.
You're tearing forward
as these arms are shooting out towards you.
You hear the call of the Tarasque echoing behind you,
and you make it to this lantern,
a singular lantern that's giving off this light
that it seems too dim to be giving off
the light that you've been following,
and standing beneath the lantern
is this figure who you can't quite make out
until you come closer.
It could be this cat-like figure,
or a pineapple,
or a giant blueberry.
It's almost like it can't find its shape
until you come close enough,
and then it's this small man,
looks like a human,
who's wearing just shorts above the knees
and suspenders and this tan-collared shirt,
and he looks up at you,
and he says,
Grants, you're not supposed to be out right now.
Oh, sorry.
Which way should I go?
Well, it's probably time
to put you back in your crate here.
We're gonna...
You got some friends, too.
Great. All right.
Everybody come along with me.
I'm Jared.
I'll be your guide
through this...
We didn't have you scheduled.
That's fine.
Well, I'll be your guide,
and just get you back to where you belong.
Everybody come along.
He begins to walk off down to the left.
Thank you, Jared.
That's so kind of you.
Come on, you guys.
Let's go.
Oh, don't say anything about it.
All right.
We're gonna walk along here.
Everybody keep your hands and arms
inside the vehicle at all times,
and just watch out for the falling.
Everybody make a dexterity saving throw.
Well, Thea rolled an eight.
Ooh, 18.
Night Hunter rolled a nine.
Crushing it, Amy.
Mm-hmm.
And, oh, well,
Guacamole rolled a 17.
Thea and Night Hunter,
sandbags fall down.
Everybody, sandbags fall down,
but they specifically hit
the two of you on the head.
You're gonna take five bludgeoning damage
as you feel your neck compress
as they hit you.
I said, watch out for them.
Ow.
Oh, my God.
That's unsafe.
Well.
Why are there sandbags?
Good question.
It's to keep people from, you know,
getting too far.
Some of them, they just start
to drift away at this point.
So they can grab a sandbag,
and it weighs them down.
And by grab, I mean be
I mean be spinally compressed.
Noted.
All right, so we got,
as you've seen here,
is this some of your
first times down in the abyss?
Yes.
Yeah, yeah.
Great, great, great, great, great.
I'm Jared, like I said.
So on the left here,
we've got the big baddies.
You don't want to go down there
too often if you mix up with them.
Well, when they kill you,
they kill you.
And we're not ready for that yet, are we?
Big baddies, like they are
bad prisoners down here.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
They are also trapped.
They are trapped here, yes, yes.
Work has said that, you know,
we don't want Demogorgon out anymore.
So he managed to get him
all locked away.
And there's some big beasts
that haven't yet turned into undead.
So we keep them all down there.
Up and to the right,
we've got the traitors,
traitors to Orcus,
those who have followed him
and then been turncoded.
They all live down there.
And up here is where we keep our Grancises.
Grancises?
Yeah, multiple.
Plural?
Yeah, that's where...
Many Grancis.
Many grancci.
Yep, yep.
Grancises, grancci.
Yep, that's where they all end up.
What, why?
Well, because we found Grancis
is they are travelers
and we like to keep them all in one place
because they are dangerous to, well, Orcus.
So we're going to get Grancis back here
and then, you know, wherever you want to be.
So Grancis, come along, come along.
Oh yeah, sure, sure.
Back in, back in the prison.
Here we go.
Grancises is following him.
You just wait out here, okay?
Uh-huh, yep, for sure.
He leads Grancis through this door, you open it,
and you hear inside...
Oh, I know those sleepy sounds anywhere.
Okay, he's gone.
We should definitely go back to the traitors, yes?
And then maybe Demogorgon.
That sounds like fun.
We want big beasts.
Yeah, I don't know about the big beasts,
but yeah, probably the traitors would be good.
Yeah, let's go.
All of you begin to move,
and you trip and fall on your face,
and you hear this rattling chain sound.
You look down, and you are anchored to the ground.
Are you fucking kidding?
Middle!
There it is!
That was it, that was it.
Wow, what we removed was the eight minutes
of struggling to think of what music was
before we screamed middle.
Welcome to it, everybody!
You made it.
You're here.
How are you liking this episode?
We can't listen to your answers, but...
Do scream it aloud wherever you want.
Yeah, scream at the person beside you
that you are loving this episode right now.
God, I hope someone's on a bus.
Maybe record it and send it to us,
because that could be fun.
I'd like to see that.
This is our social media takeover
where we scare people in public.
I approve, yes.
Let's get aggressive.
Why did you do that?
Well, it's because the podcast people told me to.
They said, and then I did it.
If you don't do that, though,
you should come join us at our live show.
Patrons get exclusive access and invites
to a live improv show that we're throwing
at the end of June.
And it's going to be so good,
because Kyle Claset's going to be there.
Regular cast member Kyle Claset?
Regular cast member Kyle Claset
is going to be there, and he's a hoot.
And our patrons are a hoot.
Thank God, right?
Because we can just let them carry us
the whole time, and it's amazing.
Thanks, guys.
It is like being at an improv,
because we don't do anything beforehand,
and we just really rely on everyone
just throwing out things in the chat.
And it's fantastic.
We just rely on where the jokes gods
kind of take us, you know, in the moment.
Yeah, could get really scary.
Could get weird.
I mean, almost certainly, it's going to be weird.
Like 99.999999999 weird.
Yeah.
So get weird with us.
Get weird with us.
Varying degrees of weird.
And you should come join us
at Patreon.com slash Dumb Dragoncast.
June 27th is the date of the live show.
As mentioned, Kyle will be there,
and it's going to be a blast.
All of us will be there too.
Tom, who's sitting quietly in the corner
refusing to speak right now.
He's just staring at us
like quite intently right now.
He's not, yeah.
Come on, Tom.
Blink twice if you've been kidnapped or something.
Yeah, no, he's, he's, he's fine.
Actually, oh, it's a cardboard cutout that he's put on himself.
I haven't seen him blink in minutes.
Okay, that makes more sense.
So, what you can do is go to Patreon.com slash DumbDragoncast
and then Tom will remove the cardboard cutout
and come join us for all of the following recordings.
But it's dependent upon you joining us
that Tom returns to the show.
Bring back Tom.
Bring back Tom, yeah.
Hashtag, hashtag bring back Tom.
Live show, June 27th. Okay, bye.
Bye. Love you, bye.
We cut back to the Shire.
And so you traveled through time
to save the world.
As I mentioned, it's been getting bad here.
Like things, right after you left, it started to kind of turn
and it was hard to grow crops
and hard to keep, hard to keep people healthy.
We've lost several people in the last few months.
Yeah, it gets pretty bad all over.
I don't want to spoil the future for you, but.
It gets no better than this.
It's, it's, it's, it certainly gets worse.
Great.
So, but like I said, we traveled in time
so that we could like, you know, save the world.
So it's probably going to be fine for you.
Yeah, no, you're here to save, here to save everybody.
It sounds like, sounds like you really have it all under control.
Yeah, yeah, we definitely have a really great crew
and everything is totally under control.
Yeah, except, I wonder if Maeve, the healer, is still around
because my friend Vorunax, you may have noticed he has sort of a fresh wound.
That arm kind of just came off and I'm pretty beat.
We could, we would really, really love to kind of get, get back in fight and shape
because I think we have to go back kind of right away.
Right.
Right, Vorunax?
Yes, to, to be honest, I, I think it's the, I think it's the right thing to do.
You got a real, you got a real stick on that word there, don't you?
It's, it's a hard one.
Yeah, no, yeah, come back after you're done saving the world.
We can help you with those hours.
Appreciate it.
Yeah, I actually used to have a little bit of a stammer
but she, she helped me with that so, yeah, but if you could, I think,
and I'm sort of obviously, you know, looking significantly at Vorunax, like, okay.
Obviously things are already going terribly, so.
Is there any way anyone here could help us just scoot back to the abyss real quick or?
What do you mean scoot back to the abyss?
Like, just like, you know, the train has been out for a little while.
But no, that's a joke.
That's a joke.
Trains don't exist in this world.
I was about to say they're actually boats.
Yeah, that's fair.
It's a little in-joke, you know, a little ribbon.
Yeah, well, let's go see Maeve.
And then, and then we can see what the, what's the shaman's name?
Shaman, shaman, Hess's Saddle Poddle.
Yep.
I like the difference between characters I name and characters' rest names.
Maeve, Hess's Saddle Poddle.
One's reasonable.
A Saddle Poddle.
Ah, yes, I will not give people normal names.
Yeah, let's head down to the, let's head down to the pool and we'll get Maeve to heal you up and then we'll go talk to Hessus and see about getting you back to the abyss, I guess.
Yeah, and Lipsinki, if anything goes awry, I was learning how to create a portal to the abyss that I was supposed to use in Blackpool, so maybe I can cobble something together with the shaman if they don't have a direct line.
Oh, I mean, of course, of course you were getting all ready for Blackpool.
Yeah.
Timelines are confusing, honestly, I still feel like I've known you for much longer than I've known the you that you are.
Right.
Yeah.
You two talk funny and Maeve begins to walk out of the room and you follow her down to the pool and as you enter, you pick up mid-conversation.
So are portals one-armed rituals or two-armed rituals?
Oh, well, it's more like multiple bodies rituals.
Oh, so multiple arms, yeah.
You could use multiple arms if you have enough to equate to the weight of five human adults.
All arms? As long as it equals out, you know, I think it works that way. I don't know, I didn't, I only finished the primer.
Well, if you're looking for weekend work, we're always looking for people to come teach different things on the weekends.
Sometimes an evening class, you know, just longevity, long-term thinking, you know, looking for a different career.
Who could have you?
I could stick around and give you a hand.
Yeah, good one.
You know, maybe we send you to the artificer, see if, I don't know how long you got to stick around, but it's okay, it's okay.
You enter the healing pool, which is a subterranean area that Maeve has led you down, Lipsinki, you know it well.
But as you enter, there are several people who are looking ill, the sound of coughing and people huddled near the pool and under blankets.
The shimmer isn't there anymore. Not as much.
Not as much. There's still a Glimer of shimmer, but not the shimmer that you remember some time before.
The shimmer's a bit dimmer.
The shimmer's a bit dimmer. Yeah, exactly, exactly.
You see Maeve running around from person to person, and Johanna calls them over and says, Maeve, Maeve, when you got a second here,
Lipsinki's back and she brought a friend and they need a little healing because they're going to save the world.
Yeah, just one second.
And after a moment, she comes over and she gets the full rundown.
Okay, so the pool hasn't been healing the best.
I've been kind of sparing it a little bit, but if this is true and you're going to go see Hestus after and save the world,
I mean, climb in.
The water's okay.
It's not going to make you sicker or anything.
Lipsinki, this is your people's pool.
You should if you need to, but your people seem to need this.
And if missing an arm is the weight I have to bear, then so be it.
Oh yeah, it's not going to give you your arm back there.
I wouldn't assume so. Otherwise, I feel fine.
Do you mind if I try something on one of your patients?
Please, are you a healer?
Slightly, kind of. Mostly fighting, but I have a way.
Maeve and Johanna kind of huddled back.
He's like, he's going to teach a weekend class, too.
I just give him a thumbs up and a wry smile and I walk over to the nearest sick looking person.
I use Lay on Hands and I'm going to expend 5 HP to cure a disease or neutralize a poison.
You walk over to a person.
They're coughing and they're hesitant to see you walk over,
but they're reassured by Johanna and Maeve around you.
Energy from your body transfers into theirs,
and you see the color begin to come back into their body,
and lights up their cheeks and their coughing slows.
They look up to you and say, thank you. I think I'm feeling better.
Whether this is permanent remains to be seen, hopefully. Your health remains.
Maeve behind you says, you can't do that for everybody. You know that, right?
I know. I just wanted to make sure if things come down to it,
I could come back and help in some way, shape or form.
Or say, Maeve, if you fall ill, this town needs you to keep doing what you're doing.
And if I can keep you doing that, then I will.
Okay.
While I'm here.
Lipsankey, you look like you need some assistance.
Yeah, I know. Two things.
I am looking quite rough and feeling quite rough,
so I am going to have to take a little dip in the pool.
You look great.
No, but I should, you know, time travel and so I'm actually 10 years.
This isn't all, it doesn't matter. I'm just being vain.
I always kind of had a crush on you, Maeve.
Anyway, it doesn't matter. I'm just going to enter the pool.
If not now, if not tell Maeve now, you have a crush on her. When?
Maeve is startled, but not thrown from her role in this manner.
She's a real pro.
Happens every day.
Probably happens all the time. A lot of transference with the healer.
She climbs in with you and lays you back in the water
and Vorunax and everybody else watching around.
You see Maeve begin to swirl the water around Lipsankey.
It's like lapping up on the side of her body
and the light that is emanating from the pool,
you see it absorbing into her.
It's getting dimmer in the pool and Lipsankey's wounds are healing
and the dried blood around is washing away
and underneath the cuts and bruises are washing away with them.
After a moment in the pool, Maeve corrects you.
I think that's all that we can do.
As you look down, the pool's gone dark.
If what you say is true and you can go back,
hopefully Hesse's can help,
you need to do what you can to fix this
because we're just slowly eking it away.
Yeah, yeah. And thank you and also, I'm sorry.
No, I mean, look at all these people needed it
and I feel very selfish for taking what you could give.
You disappeared in the night.
We were terrified that something had happened to you.
You came back and you're different now.
You're not the same as you were when you left.
You were scared and you were troubled
and we wanted to help you,
but nothing we could do seemed to help you.
It seems that you've helped yourself
in whatever you have done over the last 10 years, you say.
And I hope that that and your friend
who's so kind with his time and efforts,
we will hope and pray that you can
bring the light back to the village.
Yeah, I mean, we're gonna do absolutely everything we can
and I mean, odds are we'll probably save the world, right?
Can't be that hard. We've got, like, quite a few people helping, so...
We already survived round one.
Yes, you're so right.
So, yeah, I don't...
I can't stand to see Little Leaf looking like this,
so we're gonna do our best.
Darn tootin'.
I do swear and Little Leaf doesn't seem
like the place to blast off of Sinities.
Let it fly. You know, we've all been through...
We've all been through a lot there, dear.
And if you've got to let it out, you let it out.
I'll keep that in mind for future exuberant outcries.
If you save the world, though,
and you come back and everything's fine,
no, you've got to lock that down.
But right now, right now...
Well, shit.
Yeah. See, there you go. See, that's okay.
We're still in the clear.
I'll get my one in.
Maeve gives you a hug in the pool.
We cut back down to the abyss.
You all hit the ground as you look back,
and there you're shackled to the space that you were in.
And the door opens where Jared had led Grants us in.
Says, where do you think you're going?
No, no, no, no, no.
You've got to go see the big boss.
What big boss is this? Demogorgon?
No, Demogorgon's not the boss here.
He was the boss a little further down,
but then Orcus got a little bit more power
and was like, hey, Demogorgon, come on in.
Is he making fun of my voice?
I mean, it's entirely possible.
Very rude.
The chains begin to pull at your leg,
and you see them being pulled into the ground
with you attached to them.
Night Hunter wants to, like, pull back,
like, strength test this bitch.
Okay, roll a strength test.
Come on.
How about a 28?
How about it?
What do you say to that?
I'd say legendary resistance of Orcus' whole everything.
Oh, no.
Legendary chain resistance.
Oh, sure.
Yeah.
You pull back and you slow the suction of this chain
into the ground.
Everybody else is, and by everybody else I mean Bort
and Gwakamoli at this, or Thea there too, right?
Yeah.
Bort and Thea and Gwakamoli are all still being pulled down
and the space around the chain begins to open up around them.
Night Hunter, you're pulling,
and then the ground where your feet are begins to open up,
and your feet are on either side of this cavern
that is opening up below you,
and you see this chain as everybody else is not doing anything
and falling down into it.
You're straddling this and Jared's looking at you.
He's like, why are you fighting?
All your friends are down there.
You just want to stay here by yourself?
It is the principle of the thing.
Okay.
I'm sorry if I made fun of your voice.
It was not my intent.
It was very hurtful.
I apologize.
Would you like to go down or would you like to stay here?
I could find you a nice place to rest.
We have...
Can you put me in with Grancises?
Multiple Grancises sounds terrifying,
and I just feel like I have to see.
Sure, sure, sure.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay, come on in.
And he opens the door,
and like the chain that was in the ground,
you feel it suddenly loose and is now in his hand.
He's like, come on.
Yeah, come on.
I'm sorry.
I'll try not to trip you.
I'll walk just a little slow.
And you enter, and there are...
How many do we want?
How many do we want, Russ?
Probably lots.
There could be so many.
I would think lots.
Probably like...
100, at least.
100?
Yeah.
Fuck.
Well, I mean, this is hell,
so just picturing the worst thing I could possibly imagine.
There are rows and rows
that extend down this long crypt before you
of cells, and you hear
the calls and the snores and the cries
and the hollers of multiple Grancis.
As well, we've got yours right down at the end here.
You begin walking past all these cells,
and they're in various states.
Some of them are sleeping.
Some of them are hanged.
Some of them are spread end-to-end.
Some of them appear in pieces in different areas.
Some of them are just sitting,
huddled in the middle of this cell,
rocking back and forth.
One is making pancakes,
but inside of the pancakes are blistering eyeballs
that are crawling out of those eyeballs,
are tiny Grancis.
It says right here, down at the end,
yeah, I won't take you too much farther.
There's many more happening.
Yeah, I've got the steamroller coming up
in just a little bit, but we'll get you in here.
I'll turn off the Grancis settings.
So just until you're initiated,
we don't want to just throw you right in.
He's been here for quite some time.
So in you go.
Thank you.
This is sufficiently terrifying.
Absolutely.
I feel like you are having the time of your life.
You know, I never thought that it would be like this.
It's different.
Yeah, no.
I'll take your weapon, please.
Oh, no.
You know what?
It means so much to me.
And here in Abyss, I cannot use it, yes?
Yeah, true.
In you go.
She goes in.
She's all crazy at this point, though, guys.
I'd like to remind you.
She's lost many sanity points.
So...
All right, yeah.
You enter, the chain looses,
and the door slams shut behind you.
And in this cell is a singular cot
that is made nice and proper.
There is a bucket in the corner.
And there are bars that appear to be windows,
but you look out them,
and there is nothing but the blackness
of the abyssal void.
Make a sanity roll.
There ain't much left to lose, folks.
I'm really hoping for a night hunter,
a union leader for the Grandsai.
Right?
We need to organize.
Exactly.
My sanity is six, but then it also says minus 30.
Yeah, that's how many you lost.
So you're going to lose another 30 sanity.
Oh, wow.
I'm at minus 60 sanity.
Negative sanities by so many.
As you look out into this void
and hear the droning, monotonous sound
of Grancis' voice echoing behind you,
coming from all directions,
you are lost in this conscious state.
You go, you're like pulled into yourself at this moment,
and you're standing in this black, empty space
that walls around you are gone.
You don't have your weapons.
You are alone.
Everything goes silent.
Now the night hunts you.
Mistakes were made.
There's echoing, thundering, running footsteps
as the door to the stronghold bursts open
and the door just like falls off of its hinges,
and he's crashing down this hallway,
tearing towards the main chamber.
And in that chamber we see Shangalar
kind of just brushing his nails.
Like, how's things going?
Oh, it looks bad. Looks bad.
Yeah.
Where's Barnax?
On it! On it!
And Shangalar zips off.
And as he looks into this flame
at the center of his throne room,
we see an image of Toriel come into view.
Like, these sounds of these gears
in the background being churned.
Dumbgeons and Dragons, Season 2, Episode 149,
starring Amy More as Thea and Night Hunter,
Carla Maxted as Lipsynche,
Tom Laird as Flint,
with Kyle Claset as Vorunax,
Peter Joseph Lewis as Orcus,
and Russ More as your dungeon master.
Dialogue editing by Carla Maxted
and sound design by Russ More.
This episode featured music from Epidemic Sound
and Artlist,
and sound effects from Epidemic Sound,
Boom Library, and Sound Ideas.
And a huge thank you to our supporting producers,
Gabriel Lynch, Jessica Babyok,
Cat Waterflame, Jacob Madden,
Christian Brown, Craig Zeiss,
Perry Matey, Ongerong Kiersen,
L.A. Branton, Nathaniel Teeter,
Destiny, and Old School Gamer D.
Like what we do?
Support the productions that we put together
like Dumbgeons and Dragons and Facing Fate
and get countless hours of amazing bonus content
at Patreon.com slash dumbdragoncast.
We hope to see you over there.
That's it for now.
Have a great week.
We'll talk to you soon.
I put a question into the chat.
Tom doesn't know.
I also don't know.
Does anybody remember the Puzzle Master
from the Grants as Flamekins episode?
I know that I took notes,
like, because we planned it together.
But I don't know where those went.
I know I said something and you guys were like,
well, it's not this anymore.
But anyway, it doesn't matter.
Just say name and then we'll figure it out.
Well, you can't do that for an entire episode.
Hey, I'm name.
All right, name.
How often are they going to say their name, really?
At least.
Well, knowing you guys, you'd say it all the time.
That's true.
Because I said name.
Oh, I think Kyle got it.
Gullburr.
I think it's Gullburr, Flourable,
I just wanted to hear you all say it.
Of course, we come back.
When was that?
Around episode 102.
Great.
Yeah, it was a while ago.
That's OK.
Don't worry about it.
There is a.
You're OK.
Whipping.
Is it like Trevor?
It's something stupid.
Yeah, I think I was like, is it like Dan?
I'm just going to look to see if it's Dan.
I think you want it to be Jared, but I said something different.
Oh, that's right.
Because you said something and then I was like, well, fuck.
Oh, this is on you.
All right.
Yeah, I know.
It's all you.
Yeah.
All good.
Kyle.
No, it wasn't Kyle.
No, that's too good of a name.
That's too good of a name.
Yeah.
That's just not on brand.
We need names like Johanna Rabble Bible.
Dumbgeons and Dragons.
I think that's a good name.
Johanna Rabble Bible.
Dumbgeons and Dragons is a Dumb Dragons production.